Chris24601

October 31, 2020

60’ for the Electronet Arrow is at least a step in the right direction, though I agree with the sentiment that the longer 80’ is a staple characteristic of the set.

60’ at least will require only one 50+5 Range IO to mostly fix (and I’ll be testing what using two while exemping down looks like shortly) which in my rebuild gets me my increased speed from the Thunderstrike set back which combined with only needing two 50+5’s cuts the expense of the rebuild considerably (from 20 enhancement boosters to 10) and since you can slot two before getting close to the ED diminishing returns there may be a balance point on slotting two range into ENA and Ice that will put them at roughly the same range as your main attacks even with superior blaster’s wrath and additional +range set bonuses.

I’d still rather see a reduced mez duration (and I’ll note that Trick Arrow’s Net Arrow had it’s duration reduced and I’m not sure where that puts it’s duration relative to ENA due to various AT scalars) with the range maintained at 80’ simply because there’s less incentive for Tac Arrow players to search for workarounds that render the intended nerf irrelevant.

Honestly? The main nerf for me looks to be to my influence account as it’s pushing me from being okay with mostly mid-range sets to looking at higher end sets to recover as many lost set bonuses as possible.

The type of nerfs I think you’d really want for over performing sets would be ones where the player either does nothing in reaction or, at most (due to the change with Acrobatics/Gymnastics/Oil Slick Arrow) uses a respec to fix some slotting issues, but doesn’t try to completely rebuild their character to get around the changes.

In other words, changes where the outcome can mostly be predicted (i.e. most everyone accepts the dev selected nerfs without other changes) vs. changes that produce even more uneven results (major changes in slotting with each player taking a different course ranging from shelving, accepting as is, sacrificing other areas to counteract the nerf or upgrading the quality of their slotting to more expensive sets than they currently were settling for).

October 29, 2020

10 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

Currently ENA is a valid attack power for me that is used in a regular attack rotation with 6 slots and a full IO set (Thunderstrike). If the range is changed it will likely be changed to a 4 slot immobilize set mule that is never used.

I will say, I don’t know how your character is slotted up, but I’ve been able to switch some slotting around to where I’m only down about 2 mph on my run and jump (I got my flight speed back), about 5 dpa off my ENA and 4 ft off it’s range (82’ vs. Snap Shot’s 86’) and, I think 4% off my AoE defense as long as I don’t exemp below level 29 (32 is no loss, but the range loss is barely feelable at 29). I also ended up with my ranged and energy/neg defense bumping up a point (46% and 44% respectively) and my global accuracy up about 8 points, which covered the loss in ENA due to not slotting the Acc/Dam and Acc/Dam/End from Thunderstrike in it (using two 50+5 IOs instead).

Accepting that the devs feel the set needs a nerf, those losses feel “acceptable”; though it’ll be very costly on live to rebuild after the break.

That said, I’d still prefer the range be left alone and something else in ENA and Ice Arrow to be nerfed and for ESD Arrow to keep its hold, because then whatever losses will be what the devs actually intended them to be and the breaks from changing Acrobatics/Gymnastics and Oil Slick Arrow can be fixed with just a respec and no additional costs.

I really doubt Captain Powerhouse nerfed the range thinking “this will cost Tac Arrow players tens of millions of influence, shave off a few set bonuses and make them less willing to help out lower level players,” but that’s what the range nerfs are ACTUALLY doing for this actual player of the set.

Like I’ve said throughout this, Tac Arrow players are willing to give up a LOT to keep their range on their bread & butter abilities. I gave up quite a bit of time to devise a workaround on Test and was willing to lose multiple set bonuses and other slotting bonuses plus now working to earn the significant piles of merits/influence on live to afford the changes needed to keep the range with minimal losses elsewhere.

Far better, I think, would be for Captain Powerhouse to keep the range and look for nerfs Tac Arrow players will NOT completely subvert in an effort to keep their range. Again, things like mez duration or mag or even the base accuracy are all things we’d be happy to give up without feeling the need to completely rebuild our characters from the ground up just to keep what they’re currently thinking of taking away... then at least there’d be a measure of control from the dev side in terms of affecting how the set is played, because currently each player is going to be evaluating their builds and making different changes to keep the range... or just shelving the characters as unplayable.

October 28, 2020

5 hours ago, Mystic Fortune said:

...but 50 feet is not Melee range. Melee range is 7 feet.

But 50 feet IS Perception range for an even level mob (and its further for higher level ones), so with a 50 foot range you have to aggro the enemy before you can use the electro-net arrow on them.

That’s not tactical at all (tactical would be immobilizing a melee enemy as your opener to reduce the number of mobs who can attack you at once.

At this point I’ve resigned myself to Captain Power having made up his mind and all this thread is actually for is to vent out spleens and maybe catch bugs in his changes. Even if I’m wrong on that, it at least puts me in the proper frame of mind for preparations.

That’s why my last couple of posts, while not stopping asking for reverting the range back up in exchange for other nerfs, have changed to finding workarounds like the best reslotting to keep as much range as possible with as little loss elsewhere.

My next step is to go back to live and power through some big merit reward arcs so I’m ready for it (I believe enhancement boosters are 5 each, so I’ll need at least 75 in reserve for that, pretty sure I still have a respec left, then it’s just whatever funds I’ll need for a set of Stupefy, another LotG recharge proc (because Oil Slick is another skippable t9 I don’t have the slots for) and two sets of Artillery to replace the Bombardments in my Archery AoE’s (because as I noted... +range set bonuses make the uneven feel of these changes worse and Artillery’s ranged defense and +Acc will make up for the loss of two slots from the Thunderstrike set going into ENA after this goes live).

The net result is I’ll lose about 2 mph off my Hover speed and a percent or so loss off dps, both of which I might yet be able to get back with a few more slotting changes (I’ll be testing that today) and a reluctance to exemp below level 30 since doing so will disproportionately affect the range on a third of my attack chain.

That way, if Captain Powerhouse decides to revert it, Great! I’ve now got plenty of merits/influence I can spend on other toons. If not, then I’ll have the respec and enough influence/merits banked to make the expensive changes this change is going to inflict on every Tac Arrow player who wants to try and keep playing as they currently enjoy.

October 27, 2020

Okay, here's some more testing with some real numbers.

Level 50, if you don't have any range set bonuses beyond Blaster's Wrath, you can get the pre-nerf play style mostly back via two 50+5 Range IO's in ENA and one in Ice Arrow. This will, of course, remove the 5th and 6th set bonus from ENA and the 6th from Ice Arrow and slightly impact their performance in that you'll only have four/five slots instead of 6 for Acc/Dmg/Recharge/EndRdx.

If you're the type who used to creep right up the edge of the range bracket, you'll notice that ENA and Ice Arrow don't QUITE go as far as your Archery powers, but if you're just stopping at a distance that feels right (well beyond normal perception range... probably somewhere around 70-75') then you'll not notice the range difference and the rest of the performance issues are going to be a couple percent shaved off various attributes. The biggest one for me here is actually that I swapped the Thunderstrike in Snap Shot for my Blaster's Wrath in ENA simply because I wanted the full set bonuses, so ENA is now missing out on the fire damage proc.

So at level 50, its actually not too bad...

...HOWEVER...

Exemping utterly KILLS it.

I used Oroboros to cross-check the effects and even with the above 50+5 Range slotting at level 9 (the lowest Oroboros could take me) the range crashes to 55.29' for ENA and 63.17' for Ice Arrow. At level 24 the same slotting will result in a range of 71.97' for ENA and 73.31' for Ice Arrow.

Level 32+ the Exemplar effects no longer apply so you're back into the initial "98% of pre-nerf values."

I offer these up primarily as data points. In terms of level affecting play style, its pretty significant, especially if you're planning on helping out with a Posi, Synapse or Yin TF.

And to reiterate from the previous data, if you slotted yourself up with a bunch of +range set bonuses it's going to be felt a LOT more than if you're just running the Blaster's Wrath range bump. My Archery/TA Blaster played a LOT smoother when I dumped the Barrage sets out Fistful of Arrows and Explosive Arrow (each gives a +5% set bonus to range). Likewise, using just Blaster's Wrath rather than the Superior variety (I tested with both on Test, but I only use the default on Live because unslotters on an inactive toon are cheaper than buying an entirely fresh set of ATO's for a new toon) made it smoother still as the ranges were short by about 4'.

* * * *

The other issue related to these changes is just the flat-out EXPENSE to the player in the form of needing a Respec (because when this goes live, if you had Gymnastics you'll now find yourself with Oil Slick Arrow slotted with Luck of the Gambler), 15 Enhancement Boosters (for the Range IOs) and to buy a Stun set to replace the Hold set that is currently in ESD Arrow and possibly some new Targeted AoE sets for Fistful of Arrows and Explosive Arrow due to the +range set bonuses actually making the primary problem of the range reduction (mismatched ranges) worse rather than better.

That's quite a bit to hang on players because the Devs decided to change which powers accepted which enhancements. Even with the freely available IO's and merit purchases it still took me the better part of an hour just to respec and make all the necessary purchases together. If you didn't have a bunch of merits, influence and a respec banked when this went live you could be stuck with a very gimped build for quite a while... particularly if you're not someone who isn't rolling in billions of influence because they don't play the market.

I'd recommend at least a free respec like the Live devs used to throw up every time there was a major powers update and, with changes this extensive (multiple replacement IO's/IO sets), possibly even some merits to avoid the feeling of being doubly punished for changes we have no control over beyond our feedback here.

Note: You'd only need a respec to fix things if ESD Arrow applied a hold to everything (no need to replace the Hold slotting for Stun slotting) and left the ranges in ENA and Ice Arrow alone (no need to muck with Range IO+booster and replacing sets with +range set bonuses in them).

October 27, 2020

1 hour ago, Mystic Fortune said:

That said, I think the ENA change is being blown way out of proportion. The implication that the tier 1 of a Blaster secondary set is seen as such a 'core' power of the set, that any changes made to said power that are perceived as negative would therefore render the set 'unplayable' is a text book case of hyperbole.

The thing is, unlike a lot of other MMO's your tier 1 & 2 powers are still relevant and useful at higher levels. The Live devs called them "bread & butter" powers for a reason.

One reason ENA is such is that you start with it... and unlike a lot of other MMO's, the journey to 50 is as, or even more, important to the play experience as what it looks like at max level. You won't pick up Gymnastics until Level 28, you won't have ESD Arrow until level 35 and Oil Slick Arrow until level 38 at the earliest. Similarly, you'll lose those if you exemp 5 levels below where you picked them up. Wanna run a Posi 1? Kiss your level 22+ power picks goodbye for the duration.

Side-bar: This is also ANOTHER reason to argue in favor of keeping the base range at 80'. Because even two 50+5 IOs can't quite get it back to 80'... so the range will be even less when you're leveling up and the best you can slot are 20's, 30's and 40's.

The second reason ENA is a bread & butter power is that its got such a short recharge compared to the rest of your kit (Ice and Flash being the only others that can be slotted to be useful more than once per fight). Short recharge means you'll use it A LOT. I literally use it every third shot in my rotation... so not just 99% of my Tac Arrow use comes from ENA, but 33% of my overall attacks are ENA.

THAT is pretty darned 'core' by any reasonable definition.

October 27, 2020

58 minutes ago, Frostbiter said:

The changes to Tactical Arrow really should be split off into it's own thread. It's dominating this one.

I don't disagree. Until then though, here we are.

Now, I've done some more testing and with two Level 50+5 Range IO's into ENA you're back to about 97% of the pre-nerf range (and ED is hitting it HARD at that point). But if you previously had it slotted using a set you'll feel it in lost set bonuses (7% speed, 2.5% ranged defense from my Thunderstrike) AND in the base numbers (damage mod down to 91%, end reduction down to just 22%, acc down to about 30%). Ice Arrow at a base of 60' slotted with a single 50+5 Range IO gets you back to 79.15' and the set bonus disparity is similarly less extreme (in my case it only cost me some resistance and the "chance for absorb" proc).

And there's still the occasional hiccup if you're nudging yourself right up to the edge of the range and this is, ironically, because set bonuses to range actually INCREASE the disparity rather than reduce it (i.e. 80' w. +10% from a set bonus is 88'... 50' w. +56% from enhancements and +10% from a set bonus is only 83'... so without the set bonus they're within 2' of each other... after the set bonus they're now 5' apart from each other).

So, if the range thing is something the devs have a hard "No" on regardless of how much dissatisfaction is registered, then for the sake of smooth play I'd actually recommend AGAINST adding additional range increase set bonuses beyond the one you get from Blaster's Wrath as while they'll increase the overall range, you'll feet that lag where your Archery Arrows are firing off but getting the Out of Range "woomp" from ENA and Ice Arrow because you're actually sitting at 85'.

Because of that sloppiness I'd still much prefer the 80' ranges be maintained, but I also bring this up because of the desire to maintain the range component, the changes to ENA and Ice Arrow may not actually end up nerfing the things they're trying to nerf (ex. I'm trading some extra END cost, a few points of damage, 2 mph off my hover speed and dropping my range defense by 2.5%).

I'd also recommend that the Hold on robots portion of the ESD arrow be changed over to Stun to match the effect on everyone else simply because of the slotting issues that having it take both Stun and Hold enhancements and needing both to gain full effect causes. AoE stun is still a good panic button for those who use it that way and, again, makes the slotting less problematic.

If it goes live as is though, I'd suggest changing the slotting to Stun simply because the number of non-robot enemies definitely outnumbers the number of robots (even though this, ironically, means your ESD arrow is LESS effective against robots than fleshy bags of mostly water).

October 27, 2020

You know, just for the sake of exploring options... other than institutional inertia, what is the rationale for ANY Blaster secondary single target immobilizes being just 50’ instead of the same 80’ as their primary attacks?

As has been mentioned, even if you copy/pasted a ST immobilize (or hold) direct from a Controller primary, the combination of AT modifiers for duration and lack of AT buffs (containment, domination) would put that power significantly behind what a Controller or Dominator could accomplish (in addition to having other control powers to stack on like their AoE immobilize/hold.

This whole subsection of changes we’re giving feedback to is essentially a balance pass on all the Blaster secondaries and part of that was a statement that some sets were undertuned and need improvement.

So, what if part of that balance pass was just taking all those ranges for the ST mezzes up to the same base range as the primary attacks? The sets would then still be balanced with one another and more range on those abilities wouldn’t change the way those sets currently play (you can always be closer than max range) and still wouldn’t be stronger than the options available to actual control-focused ATs.

Just a thought for a different way to look at things.

October 27, 2020

31 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Net Arrow's high range was simply a mistake. There is one set that has some of its powers intentionally at higher-than-standard range, Mind Manipulation, as Mind attacks in this game have had bonus range from the start. You will notice Subdue is still 80ft range.

Any chance we can make that TWO sets?

Because, as should be readily apparent from the comments and reactions to the comments here, this change is "shelve my main" level disruptive to the style of play that Tac Arrow has provided for the past year and a half. The feedback so far has been on the order of 80% negative by number of posters/reactions to the range changes and those same people have also voiced willingness to see other areas nerfed to compensate for keeping the range. Halve the mez duration. Drop it back to Mag 2. But the 50' range reduction is just crippling to enjoyment of the set.

Let 'Range' be Tactical Arrow's shtick (since better control is clearly no longer it). Its actual players, myself included, seem willing to trade quite a bit to keep the range component of these powers.

It may not have been your original intent, but range is clearly the most popular component of the set's bread-and-butter powers and sometimes the best things in life happen because of a mistake resulting in something amazing.

October 26, 2020

40 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Tactical Arrow is different largely because Captain Powerhouse was working with much more limited tools at his disposal and less experience with the game when he made it. With a better perspective on overall balance he's taking the opportunity to course-correct.

I note you still haven't answered my question; do you have any experience with the TA set in play and how it plays differently now or are you just arguing from design theory? My hunch from your avoidance is that you're pure theory-crafting (and if you're not, you're certainly coming off that way) and have no real skin in the game of how this change affects the people who actually PLAY the set.

You've asked others to do the work of proving you wrong, but the people saying its a problem posted first, that means it's your job to prove that our actual play experiences are wrong, not demanding we prove your 0 play/100% theory-crafting is incorrect. If you haven't already... roll up an Archery/TA Blaster on live, level them to 50, then take them to test and see how it FEELS; how disruptive this change actually is to the playstyle you will adopt as you use it and which those who actually are using it now don't want to lose.

Other players who, AGAIN, feel the range is an important enough factor to their play experience that they are willing to accept further nerfs in other areas of the power (ex. cut mez duration nearly in half, reduce the mag of ENA by a third or stackability by two-thirds, etc.) in order to keep the range component. This is NOT some group of players saying "we refuse to see the need for change"... these are people saying "you're changing the powers in a way that destroys our play experience and would really rather have you nerf other parts of the power to compensate instead."

Also, you keep saying the designer had limited tools, but things like range and mag and duration are spreadsheet data and Captain Powerhouse had to be aware of the ranges of the other Blaster secondary holds and immobilizes back when he was plugging them in and yet still chose to make them 80' to match the normal ranges of Blaster Primaries.

October 26, 2020

30 minutes ago, Vanden said:

50 and 60 feet is still dozens of feet outside of melee range.

50' is the default perception range for even level mobs... so you have to move to at least the perception range of the closest mob in a spawn before starting to employ ENA (and even then just on the closest) rather than being able to initiate combat with ENA (locking down one mob of choice in the spawn) before the hostile mobs can react because you can start from 51-80' away. That's a big difference in how its currently employed.

Do you have much experience with the Tac Arrow set? I ask because all your arguments have been based on general design theory and not "how does it feel to actually play this set?"

Only listening to design theory is how D&D 4E happened; way too much focus on theory-crafting and not "how does this actually feel at the table."

Tac Arrow has a specific play style that is different from the other Blaster secondaries and the reason people like it is BECAUSE it is different from all the other Blaster secondaries. Other set groups are allowed to have outliers... ex. Storm Summoning under the Support sets plays very different from Empathy or Rad or Dark or Thermal or Time.

Do you want to take Hurricane, Tornado and Thunderstorm from my second favorite character (Storm/Dark Defender) too because Storm doesn't get a proper AoE heal and other ally buffing abilities like the majority of the other Support sets have?

And how is Tac Arrow any different as a set that does things a bit outside the norm?

October 26, 2020

10 minutes ago, macskull said:

As a whole the Tac Arrow set can still do everything it did before, unless you were standing back at max range and throwing the immob and hold at targets.

Which was pretty much what most users of Tac Arrow were doing because the entire apparent point of the set was to, as with original recipe Blasters, use range as armor.

As evidence of this, you see multiple posters with multiple likes each on their comments specifically complaining about the range reductions to ENA and Ice Arrow, but no complaints about the endurance and recharge increases or mag reductions to those same powers (in point of fact, said posters have indicated a willingness to trade further nerfs to duration, mag, recharge and endurance costs in order to keep the range at 80').

By contrast there are comparatively few comments on the Gymnastics/Acrobatics merge (mostly limited to the loss of jump control) and comments on Oil Slick Arrow have been basically a 50/50 split of "Nice" and "Skippable" which probably averages out to a solid "Meh."

But this is WHY we have the Test Server in the first place... to catch things like this where the particular fix breaks things in unintended ways (in this case seriously disrupting what multiple people have felt was a valid Blaster play style) and find other ways to fix them.

Looking into it, my suggestion would be to reduce the base duration of ENA to 9.5 seconds and Ice Arrow to 8 seconds. This would correspond to using generic 50 Range IO's to restore the lost range, but without screwing up set slotting (i.e. you could get ENA's range back up to 80' if you slotted two Range IOs, but then you can only four slot a set). Honestly, trying to fix the range via slotting just makes Frankenslotting the rest more appealing since the 5 and 6 piece set bonuses are pretty much off the table for it.

October 26, 2020

8 hours ago, XaoGarrent said:

From this patch onward TA is going to be basically a prime candidate for being used as a mule set. Take the buffs, pull net arrow off your power bar (less to manage on an AT with two attack sets is always nice), leave most of the rest in the trash can. Grab the usual suspects and IO it to basically be a ranged scrapper.

And this right here is why the current changes really need to be looked at... when someone seriously suggests that only snagging Upshot, Eagle Eye and Gymnastics and skipping everything else for Pool powers is a better option, it’s a sign the set may have been over-nerfed.

And I’m going to reiterate that based on just posted comments there’s at least half-a-dozen players of the set with the opinion that these changes so fundamentally change the way they enjoy playing that they’d shelve or even re-roll their Tac Arrow characters over these changes.

The range reductions seem the most universally unpopular, with those expressing that sentiment more than willing to accept other restrictions on the powers in trade for keeping the range (i.e. they accept the need for nerfs, just different nerfs that don’t change the fundamentals of the set’s playstyle).

The addition of oil slick seems rather split... some people have said “yay! Oil Slick!” while others are “this just doesn’t mesh with the current playstyle at all... so another skippable t9.” The fact that it’s a weaker version of what a Corrupter can get at 35 or a Defender at level 26 that you can’t even take until level 38 doesn’t do it any favors either.

Also valid is the feedback about flash arrow being resistible having a huge effect on playstyle not for the -to-hit (which can be compensated for with slotting), but the -Perception (which cannot be fixed with any slotting). I know I used to use it as a limited stealth option when I wanted to bypass certain spawns on a mission and even at higher levels I use it for aggro management (flash then snipe the mobs on the edges who won’t alert the main spawn) way more than I’ve ever relied on the -tohit part.

Perhaps removing the -tohit but leaving the -Per unresistable (making it more akin to a smoke grenade in its effect) would be an acceptable compromise?

And the criticism on slotting for ESD arrow is something I hadn’t even considered, but is entirely valid... You can slot for Stun OR Hold, but not both if you want to use full sets. I’m also wondering at the line of thinking on Stun vs. Hold as the only effective difference is that stun lets the target stagger around a few feet and wouldn’t stack with other holds on the same target.

That really does drop it down to a situational use power depending on your slotting... not something you really want to see in a t8 you can’t even select until level 35.

My suggestion? Make the ESD arrow the tier 9 capstone and let it keep its hold and then look at something more like the poison gas arrow as the tier 8.

Or, how about instead of poison gas... how about a sleep gas arrow? No debuffs (so no aggro), just a sleep effect to allow for bypassing spawns and more tactical pulling in a different way than flash arrow allows.

Honestly? One of the things I like about Tactical Arrow is that it plays more like the early days of Blasting where you pulled from around corners to try and limit the number of mobs coming at you at once and where the point of Power Thrust was to keep the melee mobs away from you long enough for you to blast them.

It’s a set designed for that “keep your foes at a distance” playstyle that pre-invention, pre-sustain Blasters had to use if they didn’t want to be “carpet inspectors.” Some people really like that style of play and Tac Arrow is a way to do that style without the need to invest in IO sets because you have many more interesting means of mitigation than just IO-ing yourself to the defense softcaps.

Another thing the current Tactical Arrow does extremely well is make up for many of the shortcomings in the Archery primary set. Specifically, it doesn’t require redraw when switching between primary to secondary powers and it adds a reliable source of damage types that are stronger against foes who traditionally resist lethal damage pretty heavily (specifically undead/ghosts and robots).

The range nerfs interact particularly badly with Archery in that they disrupt common attack chains where ENA is in the rotation specifically for the energy damage it deals at the same range as the primary attacks.

Like one of the previous posters I six-slot my ENA for a damage set (Blaster’s Wrath) and the immobilize is just gravy; it could be a slow instead and I’d still have it in my rotation for the energy damage because robots and CoT spirits are a PITA for the primary Archery attacks.

October 25, 2020

5 hours ago, Lockpick said:

I have to agree with this as well. I'm fine with the changes to Mez, but not the range. I use ENA at range with SS and AS. I want my A/TA character to play at range, not get into melee range. Please revert the range back to HC Live range.

I'm very glad to see near uniformity in the comments and reactions so far both in not liking the reduced range, but also in being willing to accept further reductions in other stats like mez duration to compensate for keeping the range.

Since I'm not one to complain without offering possibly alternatives, I think one way of looking for alternate balance points would be to see what sort of slotting it would take to restore the lost range. For ENA at 50' two generic 50 Range Increase IOs will get 50' back up to nearly 80' (74.85' to be precise).

Similarly, two 50 Immobilization Duration IOs increase duration by 83.32%.

ENA has a current base immobilization duration of 17.88s... if reduced to 9.75s (17.88s / 1.8332) it would similarly take two level 50 IOs to bring the duration back up to the current live baseline.

Heck, round the immobilization duration down to 9.5 or even 9.0 seconds while leaving the range 80' and I think most of the Tac Arrow supporters having issues with this change would be okay with that.

Such a change might even be slightly riskier for the TA player because reducing the duration means that...

A) it reduces the number of enemies they can keep immobilized at range (with 4s recharge, 1s animation and 17.88s duration it can keep three mobs immobilized at once by cycling through them without ANY slotting... at 9 seconds it would just barely hold two).

-and-

B) it reduces the degree to which it can be stacked on more resistant targets (at Mag 3 and 17.88s with a cast and recharge time of 1s + 4s you could build up to a steady Mag 9 with bursts of Mag 12 with no slotting required). At 9 seconds you can only mostly maintain Mag 6 (it would drop to Mag 3 for about a second until you got a new stack on it).

Now, slotting helps obviously, but it does that for everything and frankly the reduced duration makes it a LOT easier for hostile mobs to close to melee range with a /TA blaster than just having them start from 50' but still being able to immobilize three targets or maintain Mag 9 immobilize with room to spare.

* * * *

So there's my pitch for an alternative to range reduction... drop the duration of ENA by about 85% (9 to 9.5s), but leave the range at 80'.

October 24, 2020

43 minutes ago, zenblack said:

Testing TA I have to say that I 100% hate the range change to Electrified Net Arrow. Even with Range boosters, because its ranged was dumped so hard, it really affects how it plays.

It’s also a mainstay for a pure archery build because it’s got a damage type that’s actually strong against the things most resistant to lethal (undead and robots... both tend to be weak to energy).

Honestly, I use it more for the energy damage than I do the immobilize. I’d gladly trade immobilize duration (even non-perma without slotting) for bringing the range back up.

I’m talking “find a new main” levels of dissatisfaction with the range reduction. I’m fine nerfing other parts (recharge, end cost, damage, mag, duration), but range is THE reason to take tac arrow... to me it’s the set’s shtick in the same way DoT is fire’s, -to-hit is dark’s, and END drain/transfer is electric’s.

October 24, 2020

1 minute ago, Vanden said:

Melee attacks and powers are a staple of Blaster secondaries. It's not about every Blaster being the same, it's about the power sets doing what they're expected to do, same as Blaster primary sets letting you attack from range or Controller secondaries giving you buffs and debuffs.

If that was the intent then Tactical Arrow would have some strikes using the bow like a melee weapon (see the series "Arrow" for how that can work... probably using staff animations) and not exclusively ranged options.

TA was clearly designed to be a bit different from the norm... just like Storm is quite a bit different from the rest of the Support sets. There is room for variation within a concept and TA as the exception that proves the rule keeps Blaster Secondaries from being a dull rut where the only real choices are what special effects you want to look at as you do pretty much what every other blaster does.

October 24, 2020

1 hour ago, Blackbird71 said:

I'm not sure how to feel about this. Consolidating Agility and Gymnastics could be useful, but it messes with some slotting options and I've never felt that Tactical Arrow needed more crowd control, so losing options in favor of CC I'm not going to use is disappointing.

One of my favorite things about Tac Arrow was that it had no Location-based powers at all... target, fire and forget. Oil Slick is worthless to me... on Test I ended up replacing it with Stealth and feel I got the better end of that deal. As someone else said... its another t9 to skip.

3 minutes ago, rciccolini said:

The change to Electrified Net Arrow felt awful. Like, shelf my Archery/TA blaster awful. It used to be part of my chain, and the range change completely disrupts the ranged chain in a way the means I can't use it as my opener any more. On a set with no melee powers at all that is supposed to support a ranged style, this essentially kills the way I play the character since I can't open with it.

But THIS is my main complaint about the changes. The range change utterly disrupted my attacks as well. Reduce the damage, reduce the immobilize duration, just don't kill the range. This is a "shelve my Archery/TA blaster" level change for me as well.

How bad is it for me? I'd take an Endurance-hog toggle power that bumps the range of Electrical Net and Ice Arrow back to the live distance IF you slot it to the ED soft cap and be happier with that then where I currently sit.

As to "encourage to get into melee"... why must every blaster be the same? The fun of Tactical Arrow was precisely that it WASN'T just a carbon copy and encouraged a very different playstyle from the upclose "Blapper." This sort of hegemony of design is what destroyed my interest in SWTOR. Sure, its easier to balance if everyone gets exactly the same stuff, but it sucks the soul out of playing them.

October 24, 2020

So here’s a general conversation starter... Was texture wrapping on the female model always so shoddy?

I literally cannot use a two-color option on the Widow costumes because the pattern on the inside thighs and upper calves doesn’t line up. Yesterday my longstanding love of the Vanguard costume pieces was tarnished when I noticed that the texture wrapping clipped just slightly into the bottom inside of the thigh plates.

Countless other female costume options have bits like that which don’t quite align and the crazy part is that I don’t remember that being a problem on Live. Was something done to the female model in the i24 or a later build that changed how the textures wrapped?

And a related problem; the Blend pattern actually includes part of the upper color all the way down to the waist, creating a visible line at the waist even on costumes where the underlying texture is seemless (ex. The Vanguard costume or Organic Armor or the Circle of Thorns).

While fixing the wrapping would fix everything at once, that may be beyond the ability of our devs to fix (it’d need to have its UV coordinates tweaked in something like Blender or Deep Paint). The other alternative would be to tweak the offending texture maps (though one needs to be careful that said tweaks don’t lead to misaligned maps on the male and huge figures) which requires only a photoshop type program and could even be implemented via the Data folder rather than messing with the actual piggs.

October 22, 2020

2 hours ago, drbuzzard said:

I've got a goodly number of stalkers on HC, and they are really a great AT now. They simply tear things up. I tried to make scrappers to give the AT a shot, and honestly the AT simply doesn't measure up, even with the ATOs.

Yes, there are some cases where the stalker does give up too much from a primary, generally AOE potential (or a nice gimmick like soul drain), but it's easy enough to pick a primary that works well and proceed to dish out amazing damage with crits you actually <gasp> control.

They also give up some key secondary powers too for their hide; almost always an Endurance management tool. They also tend to lose any sort of taunty goodness.

My main is a claws/willpower scrapper and there’s no way a stalker version of the same would measure up. They’d not only lose some easy Endurance management, they also drop the scaling Regen (and enemy to-hit debuff which auto-interrupts all those summoners like raider engineers) of Rise to the Challenge

Throw in losing the amazing AoE in Spin and Eviscerate and getting bog standard Build-Up in place of Follow-Up (a.k.a. you don’t stop to build up... you achieve perma build-up by stabbing things in the face) and you go from a virtually unstoppable engine of AoE death that never stops attacking to a sad pathetic being who has to skulk around hitting enemies one at a time.

No wonder Claws/Willpower Stalkers get Hide as a required power; I’d hide my face in shame too after watching my cousin’s spin attack drop half a spawn in one attack.

Some things are just better as Scrappers.

October 16, 2020

Regarding “Issue 48”...

I believe the Live devs basically admitted that the incarnate grind/powers and need to create escalating enemies would have eventually led to breaking the game engine and them having to reboot into a CoH2 after whatever was after the Dimensionless.

With that in mind, I suspect instead we’d have seen a sunset (on new content anyway) about issue 36-ish c. 2016 and then a beta launch of CoH2 (probably CoH: Insert meaningful subtle here) in 2017 and live release in 2018, which due to Covid slow downs, would probably be stalled on Issue 7 or 8 with everyone awaiting the issue 9 open beta “Soon^TM.”

CoH2 would have been built with endgame grind and RMT in mind from the start (because NCSoft) with far less focus on the ride to get there and so would have been a disappointment to many longtime fans.

Honestly, things happen for a reason and getting this almost time capsule of how great gaming used to be right at a time where life has given more time than we’d really like with not much in the way of genuinely new entertainment feels like a Godsend, as does that pause meaning it’s ethos wasn’t warped by the near decade of monetizing games into the soulless shells many feel like today.

I mean, we had barely a year of Incarnate content and it was already straining things. How much of our fondness for CoH would still remain today if over half the game’s life cycle had been incarnate grind focused? (i.e. 2004-2020 with incarnate content starting in late 2010 w. Alpha Strike and fully implemented in early 2011).

Instead development on that branch pretty much died with the Snap and there’s now not the capacity to really push that further under the current development paradigm so now we’re getting some smaller stories and powers for the 1-50 ride that has always been this game’s heart and soul.

Honestly? I think that what actually happened may have ended up being for the best in the long run.

October 13, 2020

All this means is that we clearly need a Praetorian Hami Raid in the ruins of the Magisterium to keep the Praetorian and Primal Hamidon from merging into a pandimensional Ultimate-Hamidon.

Make it so.

October 7, 2020

14 hours ago, indigoshroom said:

I would change it so if a character does not have any crafted IO's or set bounces ( just SO's) then they are not effected by ED. I think this could open up new builds for people and would help out those that are not as familiar with IO sets.

During the dark times after the Snap I tried out several MMOs seeking a replacement and one thing that really strikes me about CoH by comparison to them is the degree to which abilities can be enhanced at all.

I mean, sure, gear in those other games makes a massive difference in performance, but they also just give you the gear that puts you a couple ranks behind the current top end every time there’s an expansion so everyone is at least in the ballpark.

Similarly, the enhancement equivalents are TINY by comparison; reduce a 15s recharge power (that lasts 2s) to 12s, buff the damage of one ability by 5%; and set bonuses are similarly weak; 2% here, special effect every 90s there; and you might get 2-4 of them from having ALL your gear be part of the same set to get those tiny bumps.

By contrast, CoH enhancement slotting is improves power attributes by 20-40% EACH with six available per power and set bonuses are providing up to 5 small bonuses per power.

Then throw in that basic slotting expires so someone unfamiliar could easily end up effectively unslotted because they don’t yet understand that a red enhancement isn’t providing any bonuses. By contrast, gear in other MMOs may end up being woefully underperforming for your level, but it never actually expires and “put on this better armor/use this better weapon” is way more intuitive than “put this, this and this into each of your attack powers.”

Basically, there is a MUCH larger spread between the floor and ceiling of performance in CoH than in a lot of other similar games and a much less intuitive learning curve.

In terms of a radical overhaul in this area, my idea would be this; empty/expired slots instead of being truly empty instead provide a small enhancement buff to the power that raises the floor on performance.

I’m not the greatest numbers guy, but say each empty slot provided 1/6th of an even level IO to each enhanceable stat; i.e. six-slot an attack and even empty it performs as if it had one Acc, one Damage, one EndRdx and one Recharge IO in it.

That’s still less than properly slotting even basic IOs, but it’s a higher floor to start from for people still learning the ins and outs of the system.

I’ll let someone else figure out how to adjust the ceiling.

****

Another semi-radical overhaul I’d like to see is to make the t1 attack powers have no endurance cost and little to no recharge (some sets are nearly there, Rad blasts t1s for example).

The idea here is to smooth out the early game where even with the prestige enhancements you’ve got about a 3s recharge and are regularly left with an empty endurance bar. Having a basic attack from your actual power set you can always rely on would make those low levels a LOT smoother.

For a more radical suggestion than even that, make the t1 unslottable, but with sufficient base accuracy and damage (along with no END and recharge) that it functions as a fully slotted power (appropriately scaled for its tier/new stats).

Now starting characters not only have an attack appropriate to their power sets for the early levels, but it also frees them up to put their early slots into something other than their starting attack so there’s more variety. It also means there’s more incentive to pick up non-attack powers earlier since the t1 can chain with itself for attacks (I’ve seen more than a few melee builds ignore their armor set powers until they start faceplanting regularly because they’re trying to build a reasonable attack chain).

Coinciding with this, open up the t2 on the secondary set so that players can choose to skip these t1s entirely if they wish (I know many players who respec out of the t1 attacks at higher levels once they’ve got enough powers/recharge/endurance for a full attack chain without it... opening up the t2s would allow this build strategy to be an option for tankers, defenders, etc.

Short version: The lower levels would really benefit from players having a “basic attack” power that isn’t brawl or the origin attack.*

* side-bar: Not a radical suggestion, but I’d love to see a “origin attacks” power pool so I could get slottable versions of the taser, throwing knives, dart, etc.

October 1, 2020

I think the main reason it was never ported is because its technically the skin texture for the entities from the Pandora's Box SSA that was still on Test when everything got shut down. The entities only used the male (and had golden skin and a glow effect as I recall).

Because it was only developed for the NPC mobs, its possible that some of the mapping isn't the greatest when transferred to the others (look at the sides of the female torso with a unisex texture and you'll see how badly things can align).

September 30, 2020

On 9/25/2020 at 8:24 PM, Rikis said:

As I played a Praetorian character again after a long time of not having played one, the difference between Praetoria and Paragon City are night and day. I'd play blue side if all the zones weren't as samey as they are now. Basically, a facelift of Paragon City to be more distinct like Praetoria.

This. So much this.

Outside of the revamped Atlas Park and Kallisti Wharf, Paragon City is ugly with little variety in style from zone to zone.

I’m pretty sure the exact same skyscrapers in Steel Canyon also line the edge of Perez Park, are on Talos Island and show up in Brickstown, PI and Dark Astoria. Hell, the same skyscraper model is repeated multiple times in Steel making it look like some dystopian housing projects instead of the financial heart of Paragon City it’s supposed to be.

The same with the endlessly repeating brownstones of Kings Row that show up on the edges of Steel, in Brickstown and Founders Falls and Peregrine Island.

Then you go into a hazard zone and look at the “skyscrapers” that are clearly just solid towers with pits blown out of them (versus First Ward’s ruins where you can see the interiors of different floors).

Then you go and look at the many different skyscrapers of Imperial City, the upscale apartments in Nova, the rundown projects on the west end of Neutropolis, the variety of run down, but still intact, buildings on the Northern half of First Ward.

You also see it in the props like the advanced holographic and touch displays that look more advanced than what we have even in 2020... much less the cathode ray tube monitors of Paragon City.

Frankly, I want to take all the beautiful buildings and improved atmospherics of Praetoria and put them into Paragon City. Re-establish the notion that Paragon and Praetoria are mirrors of each other to justify it.

Steel Canyon needs to look as gorgeous and upscale as Imperial City.

Brickstown and King’s Row needs the run down First Ward buildings interspersed to add variety.

Founders Falls needs the lighter and airier housing of Nova Praetoria to match its bridges instead of those heavy brownstones.

Talos has several missions involving radio/tv stations, so tear down some of the ugly towers and add a pallet swapped “Total Paragon News” campus. Also, I don’t care if was where the Rikti were held off in 2002; by 2012 (much less 2020) that ugly bare mound of dirt in the heart of Talos should be a proper memorial park, not an eyesore.

By the same token, I’d like to see the lava lake and sky colorization from the first “Who Will Die?” SSA incorporated permanently into the Hollows map. That would seriously pump up the uniqueness of that zone’s appearance.

* * * *

All the above said; the single biggest aesthetic change I’d make to Paragon City would be to remove the monorails and add a proper subway line.

The Trams are definitely not a design element that has aged well (seriously, the Epcot Center monorail from the 1980s looks more modern) and those tracks seriously clutter the skyline.

The subway access could be a fraction of the size (just put the clicky at the top of a staircase down and add an animation of walking down the stairs when it’s triggered and walking up when you arrive) making it much easier to incorporate one or more into existing zones without disrupting them much (ex. Faultline).

September 28, 2020

2 hours ago, zenijos10 said:

I followed you and I like the idea of a pet patron pool, in fact in a previous weekly topic I suggested an Epic set with multiple pets. The part I think doesnt make sense is having named NPCs as pets.

I’d agree with that sentiment.

Honestly, given the number of newer missions where you end up with an allied NPC or five (a number of First/Night Ward and Dark Astoria most notably) I think something that would let you get the equivalent of a sidekick (akin to the companions in SWTOR) would be an interesting way to expand character concepts a bit.

To distinguish it from and keep it from overshadowing MM’s however I’d also lean towards some type of “you can only have one “sidekick” summoned at a time from said pool.

Perhaps a setup that’s more like;

t1 - basic summon (on par with the current patron summons)

t2 - extended summon (passive that increases duration to effectively infinite)

t3 - equip summon

t4 - upgrade summon

September 28, 2020

I’m wondering if some of the disparity couldn’t be solved by going a step further on the idea the devs were testing of moving SO access all the way down to start (and having an “upgrade all” button for bumping them up to current maximum you could slot).

The step further would be make generic IO’s the default enhancement type for drops/basic vendors with the “upgrade all” button for taking those 10’s to 15’s, etc.

Difficulty could then be set around the IO enhancement levels (where two 50 IO’s puts you at close to where ED diminishing returns really start to kick in) because that’s essentially the new floor for performance.

Ex. you can now balance player to-hit chance on a pre-clamped floor value (0.75 x 1.424 accuracy for a single generic 50 IO)... meaning you need a 9+% defense buff on a level 50+ mob before it will have any effect on even the most basically slotted player’s hit chance (75 - 8% defense buff = 67% to-hit x 1.424 accuracy = 95.4% hit chance).

With that floor in place you can look at mobs who have +defense or -to-hit effects and scale them to at least 10-15% since anything less won’t even be noticeable.

Once you’ve got a firm floor, you can then start looking at what, if any, changes to the ceilings are needed.

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